III

I am Daffy, Daffy-Down-Dilly, the Welsh

Terrier his father gave him as consolation

In the Spring of '32. I am in dog heaven

(Rather like being in a poem), looking down

At my old Master—I see him, drunk

This winter's night, the coal fire dying

In the grate. A blizzard. A car is stuck

In a drift. He does not help his neighbor.

He is searching his bookshelves for songs

Of Spring. He reads Chaucer Whan that

Aprille, Shakespeare  Hey, Ding-a-Ding,

Eliot the cruelest month—the great poems—

Nothing gives him pleasure. Tonight,

The phono blaring (HMV) Schubert's

Frühling, he is full of jaundiced speculations.

I wish he would sober up and go to Jamaica

To see the world's largest collection

Of self-gratifying orchids, or, better,

Without caution, let his mind roam back

To the heart of childhood where I sit,

Cowed, amid a crowd of daffodils, yapping.

I would instruct him: all our sweetness

Rolled up into one ball, tossing and fetching.

That lesson learned, he could mount the staircase,

Wake her in his arms and say, "My dear,

Come, my pleasure is your pleasure." Then

The yellow crocus and forsythia would bloom.